News Archives
June, 2015

A Women’s Fellowship (ZME) Choir and BEST group from Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) will tour the US this summer, June 22-July 15, 2015. Some 60 Nigerian Brethren women and men are expected.
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When pondering the best tools to use to communicate with junior high youth, lightsabers may not appear on the top of the list. However, according to Bethany Theological Seminary academic dean and professor Steve Schweitzer, they may have their place.
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South Sudan has experienced nearly continuous war since 1955. Although a peace accord was signed between North Sudan and South Sudan in 2005, the people of South Sudan have continued to suffer under ineffective South Sudanese government, lingering military engagement with North Sudan, and tribal conflicts.
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A letter from the Church of the Brethren, signed by general secretary Stan Noffsinger and Intercultural Ministry director Gimbiya Kettering, has been sent to members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. The letter shares condolence, in response to the shooting there Wednesday, June17, which has been characterized as a hate crime.
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On June 4, around 6:30 p.m., an EF3-rated tornado touched down in Berthoud, Colo. The tornado was 200 yards wide with maximum sustained winds of 135-140 miles per hour. It tracked 5 miles during the 13 minutes it was on the ground. On Friday evening volunteers with the Brethren Disaster Ministries rebuilding project site in Greeley, Colo., decided to drive to the area that was struck to see if there was anything we could do to help. Read more »

Worship services at the National Junior High Conference taking place this weekend at Elizabethtown (Pa.) College will be webcast. The conference is offered by the Church of the Brethren Youth and Young Adult Ministry. Junior high youth from across the denomination will gather the weekend of June 19-21 for a faith formation experience that will include worship, fellowship, workshops, recreation, and more. Link to the webcasts at https://livestream.com/livingstreamcob/NJHC2015 .
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Congregational Life Ministries of the Church of the Brethren has announced that the magazine “Basin and Towel” will discontinue publication following the July release of Vol. 6, Issue 2 titled “Transitions.”
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Nigerian Brethren teams will be available to visit churches this summer, in addition to the tour by the EYN Women’s Fellowship (ZME) Choir and the BEST group, according to the EYN Planning Committee. The committee is made up of members of three Pennsylvania congregations--Lancaster, Elizabethtown, and Mountville Churches of the Brethren--and is chaired by former Nigeria mission worker Monroe Good.
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Children sat watching, under a shady tree. Women in colorful Nigerian dress, carrying babies on their backs, wandered by to greet us. The sound of hammers filled the air at the building site, shortly after I arrived in Nigeria in late March. Men were nailing sheets of metal roofing on the three-room houses that would make up the Gurku Interfaith Camp for families who fled the violence of Boko Haram and lost everything.
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The Brethren Disaster Ministries staff have directed two grants from the Church of the Brethren Emergency Disaster (EDF) to support the Shalom ministry’s work with Burundi refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and to the work of Church World Service to assist Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
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Registration closes on Monday, June 15, for the Minister’s Association pre-Annual Conference event in Tampa, Fla., on July 10-11. This continuing education event for licensed and ordained ministers is titled “Delving Deeply into Compassion,” and will be led by Joyce Rupp, an author and speaker on the topic of compassion.
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A webinar titled “The Glory of Gardening: The Hidden Promises of Community Gardening” will take place on Monday, June 15, at 7 p.m. (Eastern time). This is the final event in a webinar series sponsored by the Going to the Garden initiative of the Office of Public Witness and the Global Food Crisis Fund. Read more »

Ministry Summer Service (MSS) orientation is being held this week at the Church of the Brethren General Offices in Elgin, Ill. Interns arrived over the weekend, mentors arrived on Monday afternoon, and the group continues its orientation through Wednesday.
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“Are you fanning into flame your gift? Have you started any fires yet?” asked Belita Mitchell, who spoke for the opening plenary of a conference on leadership sponsored by the Council of District Executives (CODE). The conference on May 14-16 was the first such CODE event, and was hosted by Frederick (Md.) Church of the Brethren.
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Musa* grew up in a close-knit family that did not change even as they became adults. The siblings looked out for each other and their parents. When Boko Haram insurgent activity increased in 2014, the family became concerned for the welfare of their parents and tried to get them to move to a safer place. The parents refused, saying that at their age, they had no interest in running away from home.
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“Our Children's Disaster Services team in Houston is keeping busy,” reported Kathy Fry-Miller, associate director of Children’s Disaster Services (CDS). A CDS volunteer team has been caring for children and families affected by the storms that have hit Texas recently, causing tornados and also widespread flooding in north-central areas of the state.
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Collect. Plant. Grow. Tend. When we came together as a group for Young Adult Conference over Memorial Day weekend, our focus during worship, workshops, and small groups was on these four themes. Overall, we reflected on and discussed how we can take the negative and painful “thorns” of our world and transform them into “joyful action” meant to bring God’s kingdom into this world.
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The Church of the Brethren’s Global Food Crisis Fund (GFCF) has allocated a number of grants totaling more than $90,000. The allocations support Proyecto Aldea Global in Honduras, THARS in Burundi, a community garden related to Mountain View Church of the Brethren in Idaho, two community garden projects in Spain, and agricultural training in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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